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| Lamjura La. Source |
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| Kim Coleman, whose daughter passed away on 9-11. Source |
Years ago I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in a tiny village
in Nepal. The village was at about seven thousand feet in altitude. It took me
five days of walking from the nearest trailhead, the nearest road with
vehicular traffic, to reach the village. During that walk I went over an eight
thousand foot pass and an eleven thousand foot pass.
The village had no electricity or running water. While I
was there, I never heard a radio, a motor, or an overhead plane. I could have been
living in the Middle Ages.
One night I had a dream that a helicopter landed in the
village. Dr. Theresa, the Peace Corps doctor, my mother and my sister got out
of the helicopter. They said to me, "You have to go home. There is someone
sick in the family."
The next morning, I got my passport out of hiding. I told
my headmaster that I'd be leaving for a trip to Kathmandu. I asked him to send
a runner to the nearest bazaar town to send a telegram to Kathmandu telling
them that I'd be coming in on a Pilatus Porter airplane from a nearby village.
It was monsoon. Trails were full of terrestrial leeches
and often washed out. Trekking to the airport would be dangerous. Flying would
be uncertain. My school was in session. My students needed me.
I left on the basis of a dream.
I arrived in Kathmandu airport and was greeted by the
Peace Corps doctor. She shuffled me onto a jet. "Your brother is dying,
and we are flying you back to America to see him one last time before he
dies."
Later Dr. Theresa would ask me why I had not seemed
shocked on that day. I told her. I had previously received the news in a dream.
***
I was not the first in my family to do so. My father was
a sergeant in the Pacific Theater during World War Two. He served in combat and
rode in the same jeep with General Douglas MacArthur. One night he had a dream
that his brother Mieczyslaw was dead. Some time later, the telegram reached him
with word.
***
I know that some of the relatives of the passengers on missing
Malaysian flight MH370 are receiving news about the fate of their loved ones
through dreams, prayers, visitations, and professional psychics. We aren't
supposed to say that, because zealous Atheists – not all Atheists, just the
intolerant kind – will mock us as backward and stupid. But I know that that is
happening.
One of the very best documentaries I've ever seen,
"Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero," was broadcast on PBS Frontline in
2002. It addresses the September 11, 2001, terror attack at the World Trade
Center.
Uncertainty about their loved ones' fate tormented many
surviving family members after that attack.
Below is a transcript from the PBS website. Mother Kim
Coleman talks about how she learned her daughter's ultimate fate. Her
daughter's name was Jacquelyn Patrice Sanchez.
I realized that the first plane hit my daughter's
building. And as I bent over to pick up the telephone, my daughter was on the
other line. She didn't know what happened. So I told her that a plane had hit
her building and for them to get out of there. And I could hear my daughter
tell her co-workers that her mother told her a plane hit the building and they
needed to get out.
Then she asked me where was her baby. And I told her I
had her baby and he was OK. And she asked me just to take care of him, and I
said "OK, just get out of there." And I ran out of my apartment into
the hallway, and I was just screaming in the hallway. And all of a sudden, my
neighbors came out and they didn't know what happened. And I just said,
"My baby's gone!''
That night, when I went to bed, after I finally was able
to lay down, there was a light that shines through my window. And for some
reason, this light was real bright. And I opened my eyes, and I saw an angel.
She was dressed in white and she had a smile on her face, and I took that to
believe that she was letting me know that my daughter was in heaven and that
she was OK.
I just pray every day that she didn't suffer and maybe
she just fell off to sleep and she didn't feel anything. I know she was scared,
but I know my daughter also has faith in God, so I know she was praying.
I never question why God didn't intervene. I often ask
the question as to why he picked her, but I have come to the conclusion that I
felt God knew something I didn't know. And maybe he felt that- maybe she was-
even though she was here 23 years, that she was suffering a lot more than I
knew about. And I felt that God knew best. I always felt that way when he takes
someone, that he knows better than we do.
The full transcript is here.
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